Franchise Ownership

Celebrities in Real Estate: David Charvet

The former “Baywatch” and “Melrose Place” star has built a lucrative second career in luxury real estate

If you owned a television in the ‘90s, you’ll probably recognize David Charvet. The native French actor landed his big stateside break in 1992 as series-regular Matt Brody on Baywatch. Four years later, Charvet left Baywatch for a role on one of the decade’s other towering network hits: Melrose Place, on which he played advertising executive Craig Field for two seasons.

But if his name does not immediately ring any bells despite those high-profile roles, that’s probably because Charvet left acting and the U.S. in 1999, returning to France to pursue a music career. Charvet’s three bilingual pop-rock albums scored a number of hits in France, Belgium and Sweden, never quite breaking through in the U.S.

In the mid-2000s, Charvet returned to the U.S., where he rekindled his acting career, finding roles in a number of feature films before returning to television in 2009 as a contestant on ABC’s The Superstars.

During that time, Charvet had a roughly 7,000-foot home built for his family in Malibu. That project would introduce Charvet to yet another career, one that offered a markedly lower profile but was equally married to the wildly moneyed and luxurious trappings of Hollywood.

While his family home was being built, Charvet struck up a friendly relationship with his builder, Nathan Jones. That relationship would turn professional in 2007 when Charvet’s home was completed and the actor and builder decided to become partners.

The Jones Builder Group is a luxury residential contractor group in Los Angeles. Since joining the group more than a decade ago, Charvet has worked closely with Jones to build more than two dozen bespoke, palatial homes throughout Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Santa Monica and Brentwood.

For all of their projects, both residential and commercial, Charvet and Jones pitch themselves not just as builders, but as partners in design, working closely with their clients to conceive and execute bold and creative designs.

The Jones Builder Group is currently mid-project on another grand Malibu home, this one with ocean views, infinity pools, tennis courts and all the other trappings of luxury associated with the city’s reputation as home to much of the Hollywood elite.

Charvet long ago sold the home that Jones first built for him. That home sold for roughly $12,500,000, a sum that Charvet would exceed a few years later when he sold another Malibu estate that he built for his second wife, model and actress Brooke Burke. Charvet fetched more than $13 million for that sale.

Charvet’s last film role was in the 2013 feature Prisoners of the Sun, which was shot in more than a decade ago, in 2006, before the actor partnered with Jones. After more than a decade in real estate, it’s safe to say that Charvet is fully committed to his lucrative second — or third — career as a luxury home builder.